I found Varroa in my hive recently and in an alcohol wash test found 53% of bees affected. Within a couple of days of discovery, there were hundred of dead bees appearing outside the hive. I bought some Bayvarol strips and applied as directed. A month on from that, I’ve lost everything apart from 2 bees and 1 small hive beetle. When I first found the Varroa, I had 5 out of 7 flow frames that could have been harvested, but I decided to leave them alone so as to leave plenty of honey for them to feed on through the rest of the winter. I’ve attached some photos taken yesterday of the brood frames and flow frames. There was a lot of brood that looked viable but I can’t imagine it will survive and I see what looks like mould forming in some places. What are my next steps?
@Dawn_SD 's more the expert on Varroa. However I’m thinking that you should be able to harvest the honey, depending on what Dawn says, if you had to destroy the brood, you could probably crush & strain the honey from those frames. 53% sounds extremely high. That’s heartbreaking. I wish you luck with your next attempt. cheers
Thanks @JeffH - do you think I should cut the brood cells out of those frames and discard before the mould spreads? I could leave the rest of the frame intact for the new colony to work with? I was also thinking there may be no need to harvest capped honey cells, but I may need to somehow deal with the uncapped ones to stop that exposed honey from going mouldy / attracting ants etc too. Though I imagine the Bayvarol strips might also keep the ants at bay?
I am afraid that the varroa treatment that you used renders the honey unfit for human consumption, and personally I wouldn’t give it back to bees either. Unless I am using oxalic acid or formic acid, I always take the honey supers off. I think that you can’t use those in Aussie, though (yet).
I would harvest the Flow frames and discard the honey, so that it doesn’t crystalize in there. I would also rinse them off with plenty of water to remove any Flumethrin residue.
You could consider rendering the wax from the brood frames, if you wanted to. The best way for me is to use a slow cooker (lined if you are going to use it for food). You can use the magnifying glass tool at the top of the page to search for slow cooker and crock pot to see the discussions about the method.
I wouldn’t want to burden a new colony with those brood frames. First of all you’d need to freeze them to kill any varroa eggs, etc. Then you’d be counting on the new colony to remove all the old brood, so as to get ready for the queen to lay. One frame might be ok, but I’m guessing you’d have more than one. I would clean the frames out, & start with fresh foundation. Do with the honey what is recommended by Bayvarol.
I’m not looking forward to Varroa coming my way in Buderim.
PS @3DB , after a quick read of the Bayvarol instructions, you’d need to test honey from the brood box for any residue of the chemical before selling it. Apparently the honey from the honey super is safe as long as the strips haven’t been hung in there. That’s my interpretation.
Good advice from @JeffH. We don’t have access to it in the US, at least that I can see. However, as it is a permethrin type compound, personally I would worry about the honey
Thanks, Jeff. My understanding from the DPI was similar - ok for personal consumption (if you’re game) but not for sale. I think the bees were in such decline in the middle of winder when I put the Bayvarol in that the likelihood of any residue in the flow super is probably negligible. As for the rest of it, seems like scorched earth is the approach, which is very sad.
Is the “scorched earth” approach mandatory? Not knowing how far the scorched earth approach goes, & if it’s not mandatory, my thinking is to cut all the comb out of the brood frames (to retrieve the wax), before thoroughly cleaning the frames, ready for new foundation. Then do the same with the brood box & bottom board.
Ethan, you’ve had a harsh introduction to beekeeping with varroa, but you seem intent on continuing along the beekeeping path. In my humble opinion, it’s the most rewarding human experience there is and the more you can learn, the better you’ll be. Of course, the other side of the equation is the more you learn, the more you realise you don’t know.
The last of the free one day NSW Varroa Workshops are running in August. There’s one at Waitara this Saturday https://events.humanitix.com/waitara-varroa-management-training-workshop. There’s a lot to learn and there’s plenty of Q&A. Also, there are Varroa Development Officers available to help for a year or so. They’re there to help all beekeepers learn to deal with varroa, so use them while we have them.
Just to confirm, did you leave the super on during the treatment period? If yes, I would follow Dawn’s advice and discard the honey. Yes, you could have it tested for chemical residue, but at a cost of over $400, is it worth it. All the synthetic treatment chemicals are class 5 or class 6 poison. They are also lipophilic, that is they accumulate in the wax. Therefore, I would discard the wax in the brood frames and start fresh.
We don’t have oxalic acid registered yet, but the other organic options, FormicPro (formic acid) and Apiguard (thymol) are available. No matter what you use, while we are in the unstable period, we can expect very high reinfestation rates for the next few years. I’ve seen mite counts of over 30% following treatment. It’s not that the treatment failed, just that reinfestation is so high.
When you get your bees to start again, do washes often so you can treat early enough to keep the mite load down. How often? I wash every inspection, so in spring that’s every ten days. Eventually, levels will stabilise and we can reduce monitoring frequency, but for now more is better.
Thanks, Dawn. I appreciate that coming from such an experienced beekeeper. I’m not happy to join the world varroa club, but I’m determined to keep my bees healthy and strong despite these nasty little pests. At least for now, no sign of DWV.
Mike
While I respect the FH’s method of allowing the bees to build all their frames as they want to, the one thing I learned this year is to use wax foundation in all but one frame.
And this one frame gets replaced every two to three weeks - once most of the brood is capped.
First you are giving your bees some work with rebuilding the frame. This can help reduce swarm tendencies.
Secondly this frame will usually be built as a “drone frame”, since the foundation forces (as in “they still do what they want, but it can help”) them to build smaller cells. So they will use the empty canvas to build bigger drone cells.
And Varroa seems to prefer drone brood to grow - probably because drones have a longer development cycle.
Removing and cutting this frame will therefore result in a lot of mites getting removed with it and will help to keep their numbers down during the season. Yes, I felt bad about killing all that brood, but it is for the good of the colony. Also - chickens really seem to like them.
You still have to do a mite count and probably treatments after the harvest, but I’ve heard from multiple beekeepers that you can often get away with a single treatment later in the year this way.
Yes, Balu. Drone trapping is an effective technique to knock down mite loads. It’s been used in Europe for quite awhile and catching on around the world.
Timing is critical, though. Regular inspections will indicate when (if) the queen has laid out the comb. She’ll tend to lay out the whole frame before moving on, but she might only do one side. The drone brood cycle is 24 days. Once you see those eggs, you must remove the frame 20 days later I.e. when they are capped. If you’re late, you risk creating a mite bomb. I set an alarm in my phone and remove the frame no matter what the weather is doing.
One other point. Contrary to popular belief, drones are important, otherwise bees wouldn’t produce so many of these resource expensive fellows. Much of a colony’s health comes from the genetic diversity that results from the queen mating with 50 or more drones. Workers tend to specialise in different tasks as they develop. Some may be hygienic, others wax producers, others comb builders. Later, some become nectar foragers, others seek nectar and so on.
If a queen only mates with 15 or 20 genetically different drones(from different colonies) her colony may then be missing important traits that could lead to failure or at least, prevent it from thriving.
Therefore, when using drone trapping to reduce mite loads, only remove one or two frames in the season, then allow them to produce plenty of drones to contribute to the regional pool of genetic diversity.
